Shambala wrote:What will happen to the tickets once they are delivered to aunt Muriel? That is now the mystery!

Surely the same as would have happened if they were held by burners? They'll be gifted, sold or returned..Unless Aunt Muriel is coming? Bring her on! I can't wait to see her face!!

And also fo the record: only one ticket through STEP ? Duh. Fail. Bad news for all the couples who've posted. They shoudn't have been so "honest" and realised, as I did, that as soon as it's a lottery, you need to increase your odds. That's how lotteries work.
Again, I can see what Maid Marian thinks: that it will prevent "hoarding"; but it's not "hoarding". It's redistribution. I am going to apply for a ticket in STEP as not all of our crew have tix yet, I do (depsite not having "won" one - I was gifted one by one of our crew who also "gamed" the system) That's how it will have to work for now until the BMORG sorts itself out and reviews what/how/when/why for next year..

It could have been worse.. what about a single-entry no STEP lottery. Imagine that...That's how a lot of over-subscribed events work. Count ourselves lucky that we exist in a (closed) society where gifting and STEP is a reality.

PPl will always lose, as they did before the damn, stupid, boring lottery. It's not like everyone always got in anyway is it?

I like George Michael. Go swivel. I don't really like Dave Matthews, but I know ppl who do lol...it makes not a hoot of difference to me what music ppl listen to, as long as it isnt dub-step right outside my camp on the one night I've decided to "get some rest" (last year my not-self-appointed playa name was "Sleeping Man" lol)

dontcha think this whole discussion is in danger of disappearing up its own arse?

mshaman wrote: One of my camp-mates witnessed this at Alchemy in Georgia... a commercial event where it grew from 900 to 2700 in one year... as he relates it, it was a rave, not a burn, and no one had ever heard of Leave No Trace... the median age was about 20 and everyone was trying to steal his stuff.

Just an FYI mshaman, you've managed to fit 6 completely false statements in one run-on sentence.... good job. It is true that Alchemy is the largest regional in the US (and second in the world to Afrikaburn), but not true it grew that quickly. Took five years to get to 2786 participants, and the year before was 1723 not 900. Still fast growth, but that's what happens when you have a great burn on the opposite end of the country from BRC. Not sure what you meant by commercial, but assuming you meant "for profit" which is also not true. Alchemy is not a for profit event. In fact, when they had a bunch of cash left over after 2010, they decided to sell their first 500 tickets in 2011 for $5 each to give that money back to the community. Also not a rave, though there are some seriously bad-ass sound camps, and LNT was heavily enforced. They only had two camp areas that were red on the moop map after the event, and both were unregistered camps. Median age at Alchemy 2011 was 28, and while that's down from the prior year (was 30), it's a far cry from 20 (PS - Are you bigoted against young people?).

Before you post about an event you've never attended with a bunch of falsehoods, you should consider attending and forming your own opinion.

quadra, I think that dust storm at Exodus bit came from me, and you mis-read it. I'm hoping it doesn't happen. A ton of new people in the middle of a shitstorm is a recipe for several someones getting badly hurt or killed, and that would be terrible.

wraith wrote:quadra, I think that dust storm at Exodus bit came from me, and you mis-read it. I'm hoping it doesn't happen. A ton of new people in the middle of a shitstorm is a recipe for several someones getting badly hurt or killed, and that would be terrible.

Well I apologise, Wraith..I wasn't having a poke, but there is some serious catastrophising going on in this forum. I think we all need to take a deep breath...

And there are those, who should know better, who for whatever reason, think that the best way to "fix" how BM is broken (?) is to somehow weed out "newbies" or ppl who don't fit their, very narrow, definition of what it means to be a "true/deserving burner" and that by having some serious weather/death/disaster it will "scare off the sightseers" (for what it's worth, my first year 2009 was quite dusty; way dustier than last year and I LOVED it - radical self-reliance is a particular fave of mine; it should be taught in schools imo)

There is a great series of posts in another forum about theme camps by clarkkent that pretty much accord with my views; he says it much more eloquently than me, and while I disagree with minor points, it takes it a little further than "it's not fair; loads of first-timers are going and all the "best" theme camps can't go, and my "theme" camp can't go and it's going to be shit" (I actually heard it's going to be shit this year btw )

I'm really not having a personal dig at anyone. I'm a grumpy bastard sometimes and I just say it how I see it. I'm always getting in trouble for it I wasn't trying to paint you as a "newbie-hater" (hate that newbie word too!)

I love your spirit and POV. While I am not a fan of how a few people at BMORG handled the ticketing situation I am even less of a fan of the anti-virgin sentiment that I have come across online. I very much hope that by the time the burn rolls around that this mindset has run it's course and that it does not have much of a presence on the playa.

You mentioned that the majorty of your crew is from the UK. Any chance you are part of Ooligan Alley? Those folks brought a lot of happiness to my burn last year.

I just had to share the below information with you/the board. It's a compilation of FB posts written by a guy who has been posting in a thread over on the BM page. I hope that all the (good) virgins have a great burn this year. Separately, the guy who wrote the below posts is the poster boy for the type of first time burner who is cluleless about the nature and ethos of Burning Man and the burner community.

‎"Coachella is just another corporate branded tsunami of culture consumption" couldn't the same be said about BurningMan?"..."I haven't been to BM, but how different could it be? Coachella and BM are both dubstep oreinted music festivals non? I know that the camping is more prevalent at BM, but there is camping at Coachella too! I've been to Coachella a bunch and I got my ticket for BM to go for the first time this year!"..."Also whoever mentioned Rusko, do you know what day he is playing and if its on the main stage or like one of the smaller stages/art mobiles?"...Why would there not be a main stage? You can't have bassnector playing in some tiny camp with like no people? That wouldn't make any sense. You obviously haven't been to burningman."..."wtf. that's so lame. I'm going to prb sell my ticket for a slight increase now and use that money to go to a different fest. I've heard from some experienced burners that this is going to be the worst year/ a bad year. prb just sit it out. plus, I can make 2x what I paid for my ticket in the lottery if I sell it to some desperate burner lol."

quadraspleen wrote:Jesus Christ people. What a load of codswallop has been written here (not that quote just below - that's good shit, right there from Col. Monk - I salute you, Sir!)

Colonel Monk wrote:
I don't know, my first year was in 2007, some very nasty storms that year, I managed to not die and even have some fun during the storms. The truth is, it ain't
THAT hard out there, even in dust storms.

That, right there from Col. Monk, folks is the rub AFAIAC.

I've kept schtumm so far and just read and re-read all of this stuff. I'm not a "birgin/en" (what a ridiculous term; you've alreasdy violated one of the ten principles right there) this will be my third burn, with the same camp (all 12 of us are from the UK bar three of us who are from SF) Most of my crew are many-time burners, who also make it the high/focal point of their year, as do I. We don't all have tix, but we're all going to get in because we are going to make it a mission to do so.

I cannot believe some of the self-rightous bullshit that some ppl are spouting here.

No mofo has _any_ claim to the burn as "their" event. It _is_ the most awesome gathering I/we in our camp have ever been to, and a couple of us used to go to Stonehenge free festival in the UK back in the 80's, which, bar the location, was about the closest I've yet come to anything like the burn. There was "super-elitism" there, too..it's in the nature of humans (just like having a scrap and throwing their toys out of the pram when they don't get what they want)..it's unattractive, sure, but please don't be suprised..We've all done it..we are doing it ourselves when we talk about "burgins" and OUR tickets have gone to "undeserving" people who "will turn up on Wednesday and just mess up/stare/set themselves on fire/go naked/look at other ppl going naked (why is it always wrinklies?)/drop moop/take pictures/point at people/etc ad infinitum.

What a load of B O L L O C K S.

What gets me here (from some corners) is the sense of entitlement. Who the fuck do some of you people think you are? Some of you really should know better, too..

You have no claim to the burn or entry to it. It is a limited ticket event. There will always be ppl left staring in; again, it's in the nature of that kind of system. Sure, the BMORG have fucked up with the tix. We all knew they would, heck, I bet privately, even a couple of them knew they would. But they, like you and I, are HUMAN. Just like the "birgins" (how many ways are there to spell that word, anyway?)

Who the fuck are _any of us_ to lay claim to being in some way "better prepared/able to deal with the Burn"? It's a fucking desert folks. It respects no-one. Not even a twenty-time burner. Sure, they may know how to deal with the desert a bit better, but that's the idea isn't it? If, as a newb, you turn up and make an arse of yourself, ppl will (should) gently put you on the right track and you'll be fine. That's ALSO a key part of BM afaiac

Please stop it with all the I hope there is a HUGE DUST STORM and all the newbies get fucked up and have to leave by thursday morning, or, my fave so far, maybe there'll be a HUGER DUST STORM at EXODUS...Oh my god; we really are all going to die!!
I/we all know what you're trying to say ppl, and if you feel you really have to keep saying it (although at this point, I'm not really sure qui bono) then, as with the rest of my atitude toward the burn; whatever you want to do people..But it's a little boring now..I'm sure quite a few of the newbs that have taken the time to get onto ePlaya will feel suitably chastened and ready for a shit time, but that's not really the idea, is it?

quadra, you're funny! It'd be great to see more transparency from you, keep 'em coming, please. I know there are many who woud like to hear it all (and I'm sure there's more, much, much, much more).

I like Col. Monk too. He posts polite ideas to improve the situation (in an attempt to help those that didn't game the system) and I like Mosquitopilate too. He's been politely asking for a ticket everywhere and if I had an extra I'd flow it his way (sorry Mosquitopilate, I don't have an extra tic, I won one, no extras here) but you'd be in line, after Lucky420

quadra, I'm wondering why'd you use the term "newbs", if you hate it so?

Also, until the cap was hit, yes, anyone could go....just throw your shit in the car and drive there, buy tic at gate and done. Of course it helps to live in the shadow of the Black Rock. It took me 18 years to go back, work, life and medical reasons got in the way, but I finally made it back and what an interesting time to return. Or is it? I am realizing every little hiccup is responded to with massive amounts of hysteria. This one caught many off-guard, sadly many on eplaya, some are regulars and many new people (they left, broken hearted) birgins, yep, I like that term bc it's fun and funny. Did I break a principal? Oh well...my grammar sucks too (horrid, I know) go ahead, shoot me.

In the end, I wonder will the sell out & lottery tune some of the numerous snobs up? Or will they be that much more snobby, salty and angry? Let's hope not, but the very real reports of small (and maybe some big) camps giving up indicate things will be different, it's gonna be interesting, that's for sure...

I'm the MAN in a truck, burner who is stuck, you're in luck! I'll whip out my BIG tow chain and not charge you, not even one lousy buck!

Sandstorm wrote:
‎"Coachella is just another corporate branded tsunami of culture consumption" couldn't the same be said about BurningMan?"..."I haven't been to BM, but how different could it be? Coachella and BM are both dubstep oreinted music festivals non? I know that the camping is more prevalent at BM, but there is camping at Coachella too! I've been to Coachella a bunch and I got my ticket for BM to go for the first time this year!"..."Also whoever mentioned Rusko, do you know what day he is playing and if its on the main stage or like one of the smaller stages/art mobiles?"...Why would there not be a main stage? You can't have bassnector playing in some tiny camp with like no people? That wouldn't make any sense. You obviously haven't been to burningman."..."wtf. that's so lame. I'm going to prb sell my ticket for a slight increase now and use that money to go to a different fest. I've heard from some experienced burners that this is going to be the worst year/ a bad year. prb just sit it out. plus, I can make 2x what I paid for my ticket in the lottery if I sell it to some desperate burner lol."

This is the cultural phenomenon that is the other wild card. A lot of people are likely interested in BM from reading about BM and some combination of freedom of expression, artwork, playa life, etc... this is good. I think that most of these people will have a good time, no matter if the big stuff is a bit more muted this year.

Then there is this "festival season" thing. It appears to be really taking off culturally, which is fine. The only issue is that BM is VERY different from big music festivals, based on my limited experience with Bonnaroo04 and BM11. But people do lump BM in the same category as these festivals, and so people may be a bit unprepared and disappointed.

So the apocalypse scenario is Woodstock99, and the more I think about this, the more I think that it is severely unlikely to impossible, even if all the big sound camps folded and there was a deluge of unprepared festival kids looking for one more high to cap off the summer. Where exactly are they going to riot? There is no main stage. I think that likely they would just trickle out through the week as they get their asses kicked by dust storms, leave some MOOP lying around, and tell the whole world that "Burning Man sucks, don't go!" Maybe that advertising is worth picking up the extra trash!

On the other hand, festival-goers are certainly not the worst people on the planet! I remember meeting some quite interesting people at Bonnaroo in '04, people shared things, some people made stuff, it was ok. They could, just conceivably, start to "get it"?

In any case, I think that the 10,000 ticket distribution makes this discussion completely academic. The big camps are going to have supercharged LNT plans, they will be bending over backwards to interact with newcomers, and everything should be more or less ok.

In the early, formative years of Burning Man, there were 6 years in which at least half the city's population had never been to the event before. Not only did the event survive, but it thrived and blossomed and continued to grow. If you're worried about there being too many spectators, try and do something about that. Invite some new blood into your camp's ranks this year and show them how it's done. If you can't do that, think about what you can do to help acculturate newbies on the playa.

My girlfriend's first year was 1996. Incidentally that was the last year that the population doubled from the previous years. Her whole camp was wide-eyed newbies. She and her friends had been going to raves, and a DJ friend told them that if they liked raves they had to go to Burning Man. With maybe a week's preparation and never even having seen a picture or video from the event, they headed off into the desert and somehow managed to survive. She's gone on to participate in some incredible art projects of all sizes, from camp art to honorarium stuff and even mutant vehicles.

The rave/festival-goer crowd aren't bad people - they're full of potential and possibility.

Yep Trilo, you're right, because people from Tahoe would just get in the car and go, with short notice. Lots of deadheads (gasp!!) and they know how to car camp, or parking lot camp.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quote
"The big camps are going to have supercharged LNT plans, they will be bending over backwards to interact with newcomers, and everything should be more or less ok."

They are? I sure hope so, because we were tripping over beer bottles they were so many of them thrown on the ground! We picked most of them up, but it got tiring (and was a heavy burden to carry the bag of THAT trash). Hopefully the big "sound" camps read this board and get with it, or more solid black on the MOOP map and then what? They fuck up the permitting for eveyone else? Seems most of them just set up camp at Burning Man for the street cred. Maybe they can flash subliminal ads to NOT MOOP? And/or work it into their songs. Or would that be "un-burny"?

I'm the MAN in a truck, burner who is stuck, you're in luck! I'll whip out my BIG tow chain and not charge you, not even one lousy buck!

5280MeV wrote:In any case, I think that the 10,000 ticket distribution makes this discussion completely academic. The big camps are going to have supercharged LNT plans, they will be bending over backwards to interact with newcomers, and everything should be more or less ok.

Whatever happens it will certainly be an interesting year. In human terms the part of this fiasco that bothers me the most is the fact that it tearing up playa families. Last year I was in AEZ and my neighbors were a great group of folks, most of whom were in their 40's, 50's and 60's, and they ran a wonderful bar that was open during daylight hours. The camp has been around for a while. I made good friends with one of the camp members, stayed until Tuesday in order to help my new friends break down their camp and and one of them gave me a ride back to Reno. Those folks are good people and I was looking forward to camping with them this year because I wanted to help them continue to gift something beautiful to the community. I felt as though after 4 burns I had finally found "my people". I'm scared to find out how many/few of the members of the camp actually got tickets.

I despise the anti-virgin sentiment that I have come across. Separately, the veterans who make camps like the above camp happen have the skill sets required to wrangle the people and infrastructure required to put together a camp and a bar that is the gem of a given BRC neighborhood intersection. I am heartbroken to think about how many of those types of camps will not be in BRC this year.

If the camp I spoke about gets broken up I'm willing to volunteer with DPW and get there early enough to help put up the perimeter fence (it's been a dream of mine since after the '10 burn) but I'm not sure that I can even do that without a ticket. I want to put aside the negativity and make the push to get to BRC this year but I'm scared that it will be a shadow of what it was last year.

sandstorm, if what quadraspleen says is true, then most of the wealthy (SF Bay Area) camps gamed the lottery and they'll be there (there's money in the city, yep, no denial 'bout that, do NOT even try to contradict me. I can prove it). I don't see many wealthy (SF Bay Area) camps complaining on eplaya, hmmmm...

I DO hear from Reno camps (small ones, including the one I was going to camp with) that they didn't get tix, so odd, since they are so close...they probably played fair and didn't game the lottery and/or they simply were caught off-guard because they're accustomned to buying tix easily and play fair. I betcha next year they will be entering the lottery a multidue of times (if there is a lottery) or they'll do an alternate event. Reno is close to many other desert locations suitable for alt events, not the big burn but close enough.

ETA: with all the pining about the good old days, seems some want it to be a shadow of what it once was. We'll see!

Last edited by moonrise on Sat Feb 18, 2012 10:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm the MAN in a truck, burner who is stuck, you're in luck! I'll whip out my BIG tow chain and not charge you, not even one lousy buck!

quadraspleen wrote:Jesus Christ people. What a load of codswallop has been written here (not that quote just below - that's good shit, right there from Col. Monk - I salute you, Sir!)

Colonel Monk wrote:
I don't know, my first year was in 2007, some very nasty storms that year, I managed to not die and even have some fun during the storms. The truth is, it ain't
THAT hard out there, even in dust storms.

That, right there from Col. Monk, folks is the rub AFAIAC.

I've kept schtumm so far and just read and re-read all of this stuff. I'm not a "birgin/en" (what a ridiculous term; you've alreasdy violated one of the ten principles right there) this will be my third burn, with the same camp (all 12 of us are from the UK bar three of us who are from SF) Most of my crew are many-time burners, who also make it the high/focal point of their year, as do I. We don't all have tix, but we're all going to get in because we are going to make it a mission to do so.

I cannot believe some of the self-rightous bullshit that some ppl are spouting here.

No mofo has _any_ claim to the burn as "their" event. It _is_ the most awesome gathering I/we in our camp have ever been to, and a couple of us used to go to Stonehenge free festival in the UK back in the 80's, which, bar the location, was about the closest I've yet come to anything like the burn. There was "super-elitism" there, too..it's in the nature of humans (just like having a scrap and throwing their toys out of the pram when they don't get what they want)..it's unattractive, sure, but please don't be suprised..We've all done it..we are doing it ourselves when we talk about "burgins" and OUR tickets have gone to "undeserving" people who "will turn up on Wednesday and just mess up/stare/set themselves on fire/go naked/look at other ppl going naked (why is it always wrinklies?)/drop moop/take pictures/point at people/etc ad infinitum.

What a load of B O L L O C K S.

What gets me here (from some corners) is the sense of entitlement. Who the fuck do some of you people think you are? Some of you really should know better, too..

You have no claim to the burn or entry to it. It is a limited ticket event. There will always be ppl left staring in; again, it's in the nature of that kind of system. Sure, the BMORG have fucked up with the tix. We all knew they would, heck, I bet privately, even a couple of them knew they would. But they, like you and I, are HUMAN. Just like the "birgins" (how many ways are there to spell that word, anyway?)

Who the fuck are _any of us_ to lay claim to being in some way "better prepared/able to deal with the Burn"? It's a fucking desert folks. It respects no-one. Not even a twenty-time burner. Sure, they may know how to deal with the desert a bit better, but that's the idea isn't it? If, as a newb, you turn up and make an arse of yourself, ppl will (should) gently put you on the right track and you'll be fine. That's ALSO a key part of BM afaiac

Please stop it with all the I hope there is a HUGE DUST STORM and all the newbies get fucked up and have to leave by thursday morning, or, my fave so far, maybe there'll be a HUGER DUST STORM at EXODUS...Oh my god; we really are all going to die!!
I/we all know what you're trying to say ppl, and if you feel you really have to keep saying it (although at this point, I'm not really sure qui bono) then, as with the rest of my atitude toward the burn; whatever you want to do people..But it's a little boring now..I'm sure quite a few of the newbs that have taken the time to get onto ePlaya will feel suitably chastened and ready for a shit time, but that's not really the idea, is it?

ETA: Awwwww, Lucky420 keep your chin up, and I'm sorry you didn't know to enter pre sale (who knew? none of us that did knew we'd win, and we were excited when we did) or to game the system like all the wealthy camps did, shucks. Wow, am I being a cyninical prick today! Unlike me I swear to Larry, I really do. Keep trying for tix and if no tix for you n the 2 kids, then maybe I'll see you all at an alternate event in the Reno area!?!!

I'm the MAN in a truck, burner who is stuck, you're in luck! I'll whip out my BIG tow chain and not charge you, not even one lousy buck!

5280MeV wrote:In any case, I think that the 10,000 ticket distribution makes this discussion completely academic. The big camps are going to have supercharged LNT plans, they will be bending over backwards to interact with newcomers, and everything should be more or less ok.

Whatever happens it will certainly be an interesting year. In human terms the part of this fiasco that bothers me the most is the fact that it tearing up playa families. Last year I was in AEZ and my neighbors were a great group of folks, most of whom were in their 40's, 50's and 60's, and they ran a wonderful bar that was open during daylight hours. The camp has been around for a while. I made good friends with one of the camp members, stayed until Tuesday in order to help my new friends break down their camp and and one of them gave me a ride back to Reno. Those folks are good people and I was looking forward to camping with them this year because I wanted to help them continue to gift something beautiful to the community. I felt as though after 4 burns I had finally found "my people". I'm scared to find out how many/few of the members of the camp actually got tickets.

Yes, I agree with this part - let me backtrack/clarify - I meant that discussion of the "Woodstock '99 Apocalypse" is now pretty much academic with the 10,000 ticket distribution to camps.

It felt very strange - and not fun at all - to displace other people by getting a ticket. I think that the event - as an event - will be a success. The discussion of what this means to the people who have been doing this for a while and formed groups of friends - that is very real.

I don't think the "Woodstock '99" scenario could have happened in any case. The level of law enforcement combined with the all the regular Burners who don't want their camps trashed would stop dead those scenarios. Camps didn't have flame-cannons at Woodstock '99, and there's no vendors to be angry at other than Artica & Center Camp (the overpriced water with no alternatives was one of the causes of the riot).

It's a camping trip in the desert, not the redemption of the fallen world - Cryptofishist

moonrise wrote:...Reno is close to many other desert locations suitable for alt events, not the big burn but close enough.

When I was getting a ride back to Reno last year my friend was talking about some of the burner events that take place in the area during the warm weather months. I will have to ask her more details about those events.

5280MeV wrote:It felt very strange - and not fun at all - to displace other people by getting a ticket. I think that the event - as an event - will be a success. The discussion of what this means to the people who have been doing this for a while and formed groups of friends - that is very real.

You did not displace a sinlg person: a handful of people at BMORG fucked the pooch and displaced swaths of people and camps via their piss poor actions. You were just one of the lucky folks who "won" the right to buy a ticket.

The old system allowed well organized singles, couples and camps to get their tickets up at the start of the year and then focus on their lives and playa plans. Even though the event sold out last year I was still able to buy my ticket on June 5 and then buy a second ticket on July 3. If the ticket Lotto-ery fiasco had not happened I would have been ready to buy my ticket for this year's burn on the first day of sales.

I hope that you have a blast. The more I read eplaya the more I want to go just to spite the negativity and chaos that BMORG has created via the lotto-ery fiasco.

Right on sandstorm (great eplaya name btw!) Yea, there are a bunch of various Reno (and Tahoe) and Northern Nevada & California type burner events, parties and such.

I think the Reno camp I know and many Northern California camps that were caught off-guard and didn't get tix are beyond words, stunned, and upset enough to attmempt alternate events, some BM sanctioned and some definately not BM sanctioned. It'll be interesting to see what might pan out.

I'm the MAN in a truck, burner who is stuck, you're in luck! I'll whip out my BIG tow chain and not charge you, not even one lousy buck!

Sandstorm wrote:
The old system allowed well organized singles, couples and camps to get their tickets up at the start of the year and then focus on their lives and playa plans. Even though the event sold out last year I was still able to buy my ticket on June 5 and then buy a second ticket on July 3. If the ticket Lotto-ery fiasco had not happened I would have been ready to buy my ticket for this year's burn on the first day of sales.

I hope that you have a blast. The more I read eplaya the more I want to go just to spite the negativity and chaos that BMORG has created via the lotto-ery fiasco.

Everyone _loves_ the old system, well the old system never had to face what is happening _this_year_.
Last year demand for tickets exceeded supply by only a few thousand people, this year demand exceeds supply by 10,000 to 13,000 people. Last year sold out, so everyone knows that this year you had to get in quick before it sold out again.
First come first serve would have been a clusterfuck under this years situation just like the lottery is being one. This year had 120,000 attempts to buy 40,000 tickets if that happens to a first come first serve system, guess what, thats a lottery also, just a lottery where inticketings server bandwidth chooses winers rather than a random number generator.

If there is a fiasco this year (and I'm not saying there is one) it's that the Borg didn't realize that attendance for the last few years has been kept lower than actual interest in attending due to the hard economic times, and that now that things are slightly better (and people have had a few years to save up) attendance is trying to rebound.

@ Sandstorm, no. Lots of us poms around the place now. Some of my mates have been coming since the mid-90's when, by all accounts it was 100% batshit crazy
Last year (and in 2009) I spent a lot of time at HMS Excess (unnatural history museum in 2009) the core of whom put on the Secret Garden Part festivals in the uk. We had our own very small (20 or so including the SF lot) crew who we're coming back wih, called Shady and Wrong (no idea why )

@ Moonrise - why thank you I only use the word newb in a rhetorical sense. I don't know what else to call them. People, perhaps and that crap about breaking principles? That's my whole point; the core principles really make up what it should mean to ALL of us just to be normal human beings. It's not like Mein Kampf or anything. The word burgin/burgen/birgin (a prize for more spellings!) just makes me smirk a bit. I don't know why; just sounds knda silly. Use it at will. Knock yerself out.

@ Vargaso -sorry. S'what you get for getting up early after staying up all night writing tunes and getting straight on the boards. He must have quoted you. Wheels within wheels. He seems to have similar opinions though also..

And I hereby disassociate myself from any comeback should this years burn indeed have 30000 first-timers. No "I told you so"'s, please

Thanks. I was unexpectedly given the name back in '10 by a BRC bartender. It took me many months before I felt man enough to use the name.

Max Callahan wrote:

Sandstorm wrote:
Everyone _loves_ the old system, well the old system never had to face what is happening _this_year_.

Max, I should add that I spoke about the old system more in response to 5280MeV's comment about his/her sense that they had displaced aother Burner. I know that the new system has been debated to death and I don't mean to try to regurgitate aspects of that debate. When I wrote my comments I was thinking about my sense that no matter what increase there was bound to be in ticket sales this year the number was never going to be as large as there ended up being via the lottery. The astronomical number of tickets requested during the lottery was due to people trying to beat the odds. Yes, there was bound to be an increase in ticket sales this year and yes, the event would have likely sold out sooner than it did last year but BMORG made the situation so much worse by creating an artificial panic via the PR disaster back in November and it was that fact that led to the overwhelming demand for tickets via the lottery.

I don't like seeing virgins picked on or playa families torn apart or theme camps and art projects thrown into turmoil or burners feeling as though they displaced another burner. Again, I think that the initial demand for tickets was never going to be as bad as BMORG thought it would be. So much of last year's ticketing problems had to do with InTicketing's servers. Why the hell didn't BMORG get a vendor that could deliver the servers and bandwidth required to adequately support their customer's needs?

End of rant.

Last edited by Sandstorm on Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And @ 5280MeV: totally what Sandstorm said: you displaced no one. That ticket had your (metaphorical) name on it the moment you entered that lottery. Don't go there thinking that you are standing on anyone's shoulders. It was a lottery. The clue's in the name lol.

But @ Sandstorm - the BMORG are you and I. Not in a literal sense, but dyou think that Larry Harvey had any idea back in the 80's that his and his mates little shindig would end up like it is? We all made BM popular by telling all our mates how jaw-dropping it was/is. I think they were naive at best, stupid at worst with the crap-shoot, but I don't think flaming them helps now either. I totally agree with you about the old system. @ Max -that's the point I am making in another post. Whichever way it's done it's a form of lottery, but at least with the old system ppl Felt they were getting a better deal. Perception is 99% of reality. Also, it was a failure of technical not personal organisation last year. Jesus, if half the effort and man-hours spent discussing this whole debacle were put into making those crappy inticketing servers actually work...there are much huger events all over the world that use FCFS very well; they obviously just have better/more/different ways of processing the demand. There will always be losers in any over-subscribed event, period.

Sandstorm wrote:
Max, I should add that I spoke about the old system more in response to 5280MeV's comment about his/her sense that they had displaced aother Burner. I know that the new system has been debated to death and I don't mean to try to regurgitate aspects of that debate. When I wrote my comments I was thinking about my sense that no matter what increase there was bound to be in ticket sales this year the number was never going to be as large as there ended up being via the lottery. The astronomical number of tickets requested during the lottery was due to people trying to beat the odds. Yes, there was bound to be an increase in ticket sales this year and yes, the event would have likely sold out sooner than it did last year but BMORG made the situation so much worse by creating an artificial panic via the PR disaster back in November and it was that fact that led to the overwhelming demand for tickets via the lottery.

I don't like seeing virgins picked on or playa families torn apart or theme camps and art projects thrown into turmoil or burners feeling as though they displaced another burner. Again, I think that the initial demand for tickets was never going to be as bad as BMORG thought it would be. So much of last year's ticketing problems had to do with InTicketing's servers. Why the hell didn't BMORG get a vendor that could deliver the servers and bandwidth required to adequately support their customer's needs?

End of rant.

I'm totally with you on not liking the guilt that newbies are getting hit with, and i hate seeing groups getting torn part.
I just keep seeing the idea that the old system would have worked, and it wouldn't have under this years demands, and you just happened to say it while I was up to rant.

I also totally with you that a lot of the numbers we're seeing in the lottery are people trying to beat the odds (thats how we get from my theoretical 70k people trying to go to 120k entries (all numbers pulled out of my ass)), but, and I'll admit to being part of the problem, under the old system I had 4 different computers trying to hit the ticket server in 2011, and I'm just an out of work guy with a lot of old computers lying around, the cheating under first come would have been nasty too this year.

Me too. Both times. One computer. Only had to wait thirty seconds last year coz I left it a couple of days. In 2009 I got them in June! Glastonbury sells out 150000 tix in little over four hours (and doesn't usually crash) but then I'd rather stick sharpened rebar in my eyes than go to Glastonbury these days (too many noobs LOL) -seriously though toooo many ppl in a space about a fifth of the Playa. I think there has to be at least a theoretical max attendance at the Burn, surely?

I just spent a while trawling the 2011 ticket forums and I have a couple of thoughts

Everyone was calling last years ticketing a "fiasco", if that was a fiasco we need a new word for this year, or, we all just like the word fiasco to much (mmmmm, fiasco, it is fun to say). In hindsight, how bad was last years ticketing, yes it hurt sitting in the queue for 12-15 hours and seeing your position in the queue vault upward by 100,000 places, but at the end of 2 days everyone who was trying to get tickets had them.

The flipside of that is that after 24 hours tiers 1-3 were sold out and some number of tier4 tickets were gone, so at least 27k tickets were sold in 24 hours, and more likely at least 30k had been sold, only the borg knows for sure. Seeing 30k tickets sell in 24 hours for an event no one was expecting to sell out (at that time) has got to be a huge part of them changing to a lottery for this year when everyone expects them to sell out.

Quad, I edited your quote because I understand where you are coming from and that is why in an earlier post I wrote the below underlined text:

Sandstorm wrote:You did not displace a sinlg person: a handful of people at BMORG fucked the pooch

I have done plenty of live event production work and I have nothing but respect for the work that goes into putting on a burn. The more that I have posted on this situation the more that I have tried to include the words "a handful of people at BMORG" when I am criticizing BMORG. Part of the reason that I wanted to eventually volunteer with DPW was because I wanted to put my money where my mouth is in terms of giving back to the community. I depsise this fiasco and think that it was 100% preventable but my I would like to think that my intelligence, maturity and respect for the crew that puts on the burn has the upper hand on my feelings of displeasure about this situation.

Max Callahan wrote:
...and I'm just an out of work guy with a lot of old computers lying around, the cheating under first come would have been nasty too this year.

...and I have an office job that allows me access to high speed internet that I can use to log onto the BM site in a separate browser window and check in every 15 minutes and see how where I am at in the queue. In that sense I also had a leg up on certain people and that was never lost on me.

I really prefer debacle. I'll give you fiasco last year but this years word is surely debacle. They've turned it into a verb. They've debaclised (thats debaclized for you guys) the ticketing process. I like saying both. Fiasco. Debacle. Both sound odd too when you say them more than three times...